4th Sunday after Pentecost -- A Tree Grows in Granite

The parable of the sower takes a common image of farming and gives a strange twist. The sower casts seed about seemingly wastefully. The sower gives an image of God's abundance when it comes to spreading the gospel and our act of faith when doing so, trusting that the seed will not return empty.

Speaking of a photo I took on a hike, of a tree growing out of the middle of a granite boulder, I wrote:

Imagine if trees were a little more discriminating at where they dumped their seeds… it would keep us from having to deal with the unnatural sight. Trees aren’t supposed to grow out of rocks. The parent tree should know that. After all, we don’t see farmers scattering their seed all over the place with no thought as to where the seed might fall. No, they take great care to plant only in well-prepared places. Well, most farmers do… not the one Jesus was talking about today though. Jesus opens his “day of parables” in the 13th chapter of Matthew with the parable of the sower. The picture Jesus paints with his parable is of a sower who casts about his seed even more inefficiently than the parent tree in New Hampshire did. This sower makes no distinction about where he casts his seed. The path. Rocky ground. Among thorns… and finally on good soil. It doesn’t matter to him. This sower is just casting it all around.

Or read the whole sermon here.

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